Re: "Governor livens up UC regents budget talk (Nov. 15): With the passage of Proposition 30, the University of California has a temporary reprieve from further drastic slashes in student services and teaching support. Every possible dime should go into this effort. The governor should make it clear to the regents that if they use this opportunity to boost executive compensation and salaries, no matter how small a part of the windfall it represents, the windfall will be diverted elsewhere. The regents have been tone-deaf to the public for far too long.

State can teach Washington

Major kudos to Gov. Jerry Brown for presiding over a drop in the budget deficit from $25 billion in 2010 to a projected deficit of less than $2 billion in 2012 ("Fiscal outlook is much brighter," Nov. 15).

It was certainly not without a lot of pain. But let this be a lesson to those in Washington who don't believe in a balanced approach to solving budget crises where everyone pitches in for the greater good. It can be done.

Off with her head? No

On Susan Rice's erroneous statements about Libya and the calls for her head by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham ("Petraeus agrees to testify about attack in Libya," Nov. 15): What about that presentation by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction?

Many times since then, Powell has admitted that "I, of course, regret the U.N. speech that I gave, which became the prominent presentation of our case. But we thought it was correct at the time. The president thought it was correct. Congress thought it was correct." Did McCain and Graham call for his head on this much more serious situation?

Not qualified to judge

Sen. John McCain is not qualified to pass judgment on Ambassador Susan Rice. He selected (with Tea Party pressure, I'm sure) an inexperienced, ignorant and, judging by her statements, rather dumb woman to be a heartbeat away from the presidency: Sarah Palin.

It's justice denied

Usually I'm proud to be an American citizen. My first disillusionment came when the U.S. government issued Executive Order 9066 and put thousands of Japanese Americans in relocation camps in 1942. The latest ghastly embarrassment appeared Nov. 9 on The Chronicle's front page ("6 years and waiting - VA errors add to delays").

To keep Navy cook Hosea Roundtree waiting six years to get mental health care because the Department of Veterans Affairs could not decide whether working on a U.S. destroyer in 1983 while it shelled innocent civilians in Beirut should be classified as combat - a kindergarten kid today could answer that with a resounding "yes."

Then when Jamie Fox of the VA staff questioned Roundtree's denial, she lost her own job. Thirty-five thousand veterans cases were reversed by the VA in 2010 alone. What happened to justice in this country?

No combat, no medical benefits

The VA is backed up because of frivolous claims like this one. As a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, I am dumfounded you can get PTSD sitting on a destroyer lobbing shells into Beirut. The VA is correct - he never saw combat.

Veterans like him are clogging up the system so our legitimate combat veterans have to wait to have their claims completed. This is just another example of the entitlement society we've created to get something for nothing. The VA should send him a letter thanking him for his service and say "declined."

Dennis Rydgren, Richmond

Arizona - foreign country

Speaking of secession ("If at first you don't succeed ... secede," Caille Millner, Nov. 14): It's time to hold a national plebiscite on the question of partitioning Arizona from the United States.

If separated, it would then be free to form its own country with its own currency, laws, postage and immigration rules. And - mirroring their state's "show me your papers" law - all citizens of the New Arizona would also be required to have passports, visas and current blood tests to enter the United States.

Let those states go away

Three cheers for Caille Millner's thoughtful, factual, insightful, witty article on secessionist predilections among thousands of citizens of the former Confederate states.

Millner's answers to her own question - "What would happen if we decided to let them go?" - were priceless. And I, for one, think we should let them go. However, in addition to the visa system and guest worker program for qualifying residents of the seceded states, I think we should further help these loser states by providing each state with 40 acres of federal land and a mule. Oh, and I guess we could include a box of cotton seeds, or whatever type of seed each state desires, along, of course, with planting instructions.